Opera and Telenor to co-operate

August 25, 2010 · by Espen André Øverdahl

In 1994, Opera started out as a research project in Telenor, the largest telecommunications company in Norway. The founders of Opera, Jon S. von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy, worked in Telenor back then. A year later, Jon and Geir left Telenor and founded Opera. There are many strong ties between Opera and Telenor. Some of the first engineers and employees in Opera were developers form Telenor.

The picture above shows Jon and Geir hard at work in the Telenor Research Labs. Who knew that fifteen years later Opera and Telenor would sign a huge deal: Providing Opera Mini to over 184 million Telenor customers!

Readers' comments 14

Left under the original article, as archived.

TamilWednesday, August 25, 2010 12:16:44 PM
JaredWednesday, August 25, 2010 12:30:26 PM
Good times. . . good times
Pål Unanue-ZahlWednesday, August 25, 2010 12:42:00 PM
It's so cool to see the old black and white picture from Opera's past. This company has a long history behind it.
Charles SchlossWednesday, August 25, 2010 1:33:15 PM
Artur „Jurgi” JurgawkaWednesday, August 25, 2010 1:42:13 PM
Back to roots!
Joonas LehtolahtiWednesday, August 25, 2010 1:46:19 PM
Good for Opera, good for Telenor.
Rafael LuikWednesday, August 25, 2010 2:04:14 PM
What cute!
SuntanaWednesday, August 25, 2010 2:29:53 PM
Man! Those look like some extremely cramped working conditions. If I didn't see the windows, I'd swear it was a closet inside which they were working. http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/LOL2.gif - It seems like when the dude on the left turns back to work, the 2 guys will be hitting elbows with their mouse activity. http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/ROFL.gif - I think after having a BIG lunch, both guys might have trouble getting in and out of that work area. http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/LOL.gif -

I sure hope Opera / MyOpera provides their employees more workspace.
d4rkn1ghtWednesday, August 25, 2010 6:46:40 PM
Cutting SpoonWednesday, August 25, 2010 8:58:04 PM
And the circle finally closes upon itself. Great to see that the potential market for Mini has grown even larger. And it would appear that many of Telenor's holdings are in areas with limited bandwidth, ensuring good adoption rates.
AngelikiThursday, August 26, 2010 4:38:08 AM
Eugene T.S. WongThursday, August 26, 2010 4:45:56 AM
Originally posted by Suntana:

I sure hope Opera / MyOpera provides their employees more workspace.

If they don't give their employees more space, then they can say that they are offering their employees a "historic" work space.

Instead of calling them cramped workspaces, they can call them "mini Opera spaces".

They have to do whatever it takes to make people happy.
Raju BitterTuesday, August 31, 2010 9:30:35 PM
Telenor has always been a very innovative company. I'm glad that we have Opera as a "European" browser. Much of the innovation we have seen in other browsers has been initially introduced by Opera. The cooperation with Telenor will definitely add even more momentum to Opera's mobile success story.
ZodiusThursday, September 2, 2010 4:31:17 PM
The photo above has a feel of an underground epicness to me